Kyiv dropping Russia’s Kursk after being blinded by lack of US intelligence, say Ukrainians | EUROtoday

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Ukrainian forces are collapsing in a close to rout, being pushed out of Russia’s Kursk area after being blinded by Washington’s intelligence blackout. Scenes of Kyiv’s troops mangled, burned and on the run filtering again to the capital have strengthened mistrust of America and Russia.

Now comes the proposed ceasefire, seen as a short-term tactical necessity as a result of it has been traded for Donald Trump’s settlement to show the intelligence faucets again on.

“We’re not delighted but we are realistic. A ceasefire agreement from us at least means that we are back talking to the Americans and they have given us access to the intelligence we need. Kursk shows what happens when we don’t have it,” mentioned a senior ministerial adviser.

Ukraine’s forces have come underneath sustained and correct assaults by plane, artillery and drones mixed with large-scale infantry assaults by elite Russian models and North Korean troops.

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The imminent lack of the Kursk salient, the one slice of Russian territory held by Ukraine (which has misplaced about 20 per cent of its lands to the Kremlin’s forces for the reason that nation was first attacked in 2014) is a large blow to Ukraine.

Kyiv had hoped to commerce Kursk for its personal land in future peace negotiations. The sudden recapture of Kursk has been enabled largely because of the American suspension of army and intelligence support to Ukraine.

Sudzha, the city within the centre of the lozenge of land captured by Ukraine final yr is now in Russian palms in response to social media posts by the Kremlin’s forces, who’ve raised the flag there. Ukraine has struck again with artillery and rocket salvos, leaving a lot of the city in ruins as its forces have withdrawn south.

Social media posts by Ukrainian troopers have proven their males lifeless in mangled armoured automobiles. Russian troops additionally declare to have captured a minimum of one American Abrams tank and several other Bradley preventing automobiles – the latter have proved extremely efficient in Ukraine’s arsenal.

The Russian assault included cross-border raids from the west and east of the territory held by Ukraine to chop off the M23 street, which was the one provide route into the area for Kyiv forces.

These incursions would have been noticed extra simply if the Ukrainian forces had not been blinded by America’s refusal to share satellite tv for pc intelligence with them, in response to a senior Ukrainian intelligence officer working on that entrance.

There has additionally been alarm in Kyiv on the accuracy of Russian air and artillery assaults on their army bases, bunkers and hideouts – which has fuelled hypothesis of additional collusion between Washington and Moscow.

There is not any proof for this past the apparent coincidence of an intelligence sharing ban and the Kremlin’s newest assaults – it’s higher understood as an indication of how deeply Ukrainians mistrust the Trump administration.

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The ceasefire provide is seen as a tactical transfer that has strategic dangers for Ukraine that it has to take to restore relations with Washington and “throw the issue back at Russia”, because the senior authorities adviser put it. Moscow has but to reply to the US-Ukrainian ceasefire provide.

Volodymyr Omelyan, a former infrastructure minister in Ukraine, mentioned that he believed Mr Putin would settle for the ceasefire provide as a result of “the Russian economy is doing badly, oil prices are at a record low – it suits Putin more than Ukraine,” he mentioned.

A frontline officer with the decision signal “Sneaky”, who has been preventing for almost 10 years main reconnaissance and common infantry troops on the jap entrance the place Ukrainian officers had reported a decline in Russian capabilities, cautiously welcomed the ceasefire thought. “Who knows? Not bad, if it works,” he instructed The Independent.